Europe’s largest mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse says it expects first-half results at the top end of market estimates, helped by customers trading up to a new generation of handsets.

Insight

The sales data for the emerging generation of colour-screen 2.5G handsets have been very positive so far. Nokia’s 7650 is selling well, the SonyEricsson T68i continues to enjoy popularity and the Samsung T100 has enjoyed a strong reception. This bodes well for the several manufacturers which are planning commercial shipments of similar devices prior to Christmas.

Carphone Warehouse should be applauded for particularly good execution throughout the difficult market conditions of the last year, but these figures presage a wider upturn. It will be led by demand for new, more capable handsets, which in turn will cause operators to revise upwards their infrastructure requirements. The effect will not be immediate, but it should start to reflect on manufacturers balance sheets by Q1 2003.